Miami Vice

Credit Mann for accurately recapturing the atmosphere of the original TV series. Unfortunately, that was a vapid waste of space, which valued style over substance. And the motion picture goes the same way, thanks largely to Farrell who demonstrates all the dramatic range of a puppy, with a haircut here which so closely resembles a mullet, it can only be a touching homage to the era of the original. Add a leading lady for whom English is not a first language, plus Jamie Foxx abandoning the film before shooting ended, and...it's a miracle the results are this side of a total disaster. Instead, it's merely a decent representation of everything wrong about large-budget Hollywood cinema: a bloated lump of formulaic pap.

Crockett (Farrell) and Tubbs (Foxx) are drawn into a complex federal undercover operation when one of their informants compromises the sting. They take over the undercover portion, running drugs into Florida for drug-lord Montoya (Tosar), but inevitably, Crockett falls for Montoya's Chinese accountant (Li). It's striking how simply tedious much of this is, propelled by Farrell, who appears to have been instructed by Mann to keep one expression throughout the entire film. The results are simply uninteresting, overlong and even the action sequences, few such as they are, don't have enough zest. Even if the original wasn't up to much to begin with, some things are probably best left undisturbed.